Rex Stout - Double for Death

“You’re dead wrong,” Dan was saying earnestly. “I mean in my opinion. The right age for a man to marry is between fifty and fifty-five. I can give you a dozen good reasons, but I won’t do it now because you’re not wide enough awake to appreciate them and anyway you’re too young. I expect to get married in about fifteen years. Say I had got married when I was twenty-five. Where would I be now? A fellow I know named Pokorny was saying the other day — here he comes again. Find him, Tec?”

“No.” Fox was there. “Come on.”

In the summer dusk Dan and Nancy were at a table on the raised terrace of the Eskimo Village at the New York World’s Fair. In front of him a Caramel Iceberg was slowly melting into slush; Nancy was cooling her fingers around a glass of iced tea with lemon.

Dan grunted. “I can stand it if you can,” he declared.

Nancy looked at him in surprise. “Stand what?”

“Now now.” He grunted again. “I’ll bet you’d never guess.”

“I’m too hot and tired to guess. And this certainly seems like a wild-goose chase to me, the celebrated Tecumseh Fox chasing all over five boroughs for hours trying to find a radio gossip and dragging us with him. I don’t feel like guessing.”

“Right. I repeat, I can stand it if you can.”

She gestured in weary exasperation. “Stand what?” she demanded. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“I am referring to that camel at the table by the pillar that keeps staring at you.”

“Oh.” Nancy darted a sidewise glance. “I hadn’t noticed him.”

“Sure you hadn’t.”

“Well, I hadn’t. And what if I had?” She shot another glance. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I didn’t say anything was wrong with him. But since you ask, have you noticed the outfit on the chair by him? It looks professional. If you felt like guessing, you might guess he’s a news photographer.”

“What if he is?”

“Well, you’re news, aren’t you?”

“Why... but he...” Nancy looked startled. “He couldn’t know that.”

“He could if he reads the tabloids and his eyes are good.” Dan scowled across the slush of his Caramel Iceberg. “I admit it’s possible you hadn’t noticed him gazing at you. Naturally you’re used to it. You’ve had whole audiences gazing at you. It’s your job to put on clothes and walk around so people can look at you. Also it’s obvious that you’re perfectly aware that your face and figure are stareogenic, so you wouldn’t—”

“What does stareogenic mean?”

“Genic is a suffix which means generating or producing. Therefore stareogenic means ‘generating stares.’”

“Then you’re trying to say that it’s obvious that I’m aware that my face and figure generate stares.”

“That was the idea.”

“Like the bearded lady, for instance, or Albertelle the What-is-it, man or woman, only a dime ten cents—”

“I said nothing about beards or what-is-its, I merely said that you—”

“Miss Grant!”

Their argument had removed their attention from the camel at the table by the pillar, so his deft and speedy manipulation of his outfit had been unobserved. Now, as he suddenly shouted Nancy’s name and they both turned to face him, they blinked simultaneously at the blinding glare of the flashlight bulb. Dan, as he blinked, also leaped. Then the camel blinked, as Dan’s fist caught him on the side of the jaw and toppled him among chairs and tables, his camera bouncing on the floor. There were screams, and movements, and waiters came rushing.

An authoritative voice sounded: “May I ask what that was for?”

Dan, turning, frowned at Tecumseh Fox. He shook his head. “I think I’ve got a stomach-ache.”

“I hope you have.” Fox got Nancy by the arm. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Following them, Dan had the appearance of a man who could be detained only with considerable effort and difficulty, so no one tried.

At eleven o’clock that Monday night Nancy Grant was in an upstairs room at the Fox place, sound asleep. The soundness of her sleep was due partly to her healthy youth, partly to the extremity of her fatigue and partly to a tablet which Mrs. Trimble had dissolved in water for her; and her presence at the Fox place was due to the fact that it was closer to White Plains than was the little flat in New York which she shared with a Hartlespoon co-worker. Her Uncle Andy was sleeping, or not sleeping, somewhere in White Plains, just where she didn’t know. He was being held as a material witness and bail could not be arranged until Tuesday morning, in spite of the fur Nat Collins had started flying; and if he were charged with murder, as seemed likely, there would of course be no bail. But for the three good reasons cited, she slept.

Downstairs, the large room which was full of things contained also half a dozen people. Dan Pavey and the man with the bee stings were playing backgammon; the homely youth and a man with a short neck and a long grey mustache were arguing over a crossword puzzle; Tecumseh Fox was playing a guitar duet with a black-haired little Latin with narrow slanting eyes. But at 10:58 Fox put down the guitar, went to the radio and switched it on, dialed for a station, moderated the volume and stood frowning down at it. It spoke:

“... so I introduce myself because the last time the announcer did it he said Du Barry by mistake and I had to talk falsetto for thirty minutes, and not only that, I had to do it in French which I can’t play without music. So here is Dick Barry saying hallo...”

The homely youth called across: “I never knew your curiosity to get you down that low before.”

He got no retort. Fox stood for ten minutes.

“... I was sitting in the lobby of the Hotel Churchill and a bellboy came along singing: ‘Calling Dick Barry, calling Dick Barry, calling Dick Barry,’ and I told him from force of habit: ‘Take the pot, my straight’s still open in the middle.’...”

The homely youth arose and left the room. Fox stood another ten minutes,

“... And now for tomorrow’s and next week’s news. My challenge as usual, check it as it happens and see if I’m wrong. The Brooklyn grand jury will indict a man who parts his hair on the side, eats at the Flamingo Club and answers if you say Leslie or just Les. ‘Hope Chest,’ opening Wednesday night at the Knickerbocker Roof, will be a flop. Tom Booker will plead guilty to the charge of smuggling and take what he gets. Tecumseh Fox, the super-sleuth, knows why the radio at the Thorpe bungalow was playing band music last night instead of Dick Barry, your favorite broadcaster and mine as was to be expected, and will inform the police if necessary to protect Andrew Grant, who is being held as a material witness and may be charged with murder tomorrow. Three women who...”

Fox turned the radio off, gave every one a good night and left the room. He was halfway up the stairs when Dan Pavey’s rumble came from below:

“Hey, Tec! Anything stirring tonight?”

“I don’t know. I may have laid an egg. I said ten million to one.” Fox turned to continue up and then turned again. “But I’m getting a bet down. Do you want a slice?”

“What are the chances?”

“You might triple it.”

“I’ll ride for a hundred.”

“You’re on. Good night.”

Fox ascended, went down the hall to the large room with a desk and a safe, seated himself and pulled the telephone across. He got the man he wanted and spoke:

“How are you, Harry? Family all right? Good. I’m sorry to bother you at home like this, but I may be moving around too fast in the morning to get you at the office. I’m developing a sort of an interest in the Ridley Thorpe murder. Of course. No, I’m working in a side show. What I wanted to ask, I notice that Thorpe Control Corporation closed at 89 Saturday and dropped to 30 today. Is that because the Thorpe enterprises were dominated by Thorpe and he was responsible for their success? No other reason? Holy smoke. Oh, you think it will. He was as good as that, was he? I suppose so. Let’s see — buy me a thousand shares when you think it’s around bottom tomorrow morning. Even if you think it may drop again in the afternoon, get it before twelve o’clock. Wait a minute — get it before eleven o’clock. That’s important. No, I can’t, but I never bet on a sure thing. Suit yourself...”